


Finding Ourselves

by tutivilllus



Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, Angst, Assassin's Creed (Video Game), Assassin's Creed: Origins, Canon Relationships, Character Study, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Eventual sex (more than a probability), F/M, Historical References, Hurt, Hurt/Comfort, Lovers to strangers to...?, Meditation, Mythology References, Partnership, Post-Break Up, Post-Canon, Romance, Slow Burn, Spoilers, The Hidden Ones DLC, getting to know each other (again)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-30
Updated: 2018-06-30
Packaged: 2019-05-31 03:13:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15110633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tutivilllus/pseuds/tutivilllus
Summary: How much did he change in these four years? How much did she? Amunet was preparing to to say farewell to Bayek again. And to Aya.[Post-Hidden Ones exploration]





	Finding Ourselves

**Author's Note:**

> I was really excited about playing The Hidden Ones for one reason only, and I think I was not alone in that regard. I was dying to see what happens when Bayek and Aya meet each other again. The final scene was an emotional roller coaster and even though it was really good, it was far from a satisfying closure. But who can blame me, because what I imagined could hardly work as anything else than gratuitous sex and a fairy tale ending. So naturally, I set on a quest to write some smut. Unfortunately (or luckily?) the introduction turned out a beast of its own, with just a hint of raw passions. I hope you enjoy it.

The sea in front of her spread out like glistening mirror of turquoise. The surface was calm, polished like marble, suckling from the sun god’s power. He was biding his time, diluting his immortality. In no time he would set the sands and rocks ablaze with heath. Scorched and dusty, riddled with black veins of basalt, the Sinai was falling from voluptuous heights down to meet the sea, where land and water met as old lovers on tame shores. In the distance, she could discern where the desert was emerging from the water. The way to the other side seemed easy, the surface treacherously calm, dotted with numerous sails like a caravan gliding on the low winds. Surrounding her, the rugged terrain was barren of souls, save for the desert jinns riding on clouds of dust, rushing down the slopes of the hills, through crevices and canyons, playing around solitary trees and bushes. People said that the jinns would go mad on mornings like this, for they fed from dreams of sleepers the night before. When a desert storm rages, people believed, the jinns were crazed from inhabiting the dreams of a god. Much too powerful for them, it drives them mad, giving birth to mighty sandstorms. The desert jinns followed her across the sea to her new home, she was sure. Often, when she closed her eyes, surrounded by the sound of carts strolling through cobbled roads and drunkards chanting lewd songs at the doors of inns, she would give in to the sensation of flying with the jinns high above the sea, back here to her home, the only place where she could find peace.

With deep and disciplined breaths, Amunet was breathing in the power of her land, imprisoning the air it inside her body as a hidden source of life. It was odourless, but full of distant smells. The smell of wind dampened by the sea, deviously fused with the scent of thousands of people, gods and parchments lettered with knowledge. Of all smells, she missed this one the most. There is nothing like it. Rome could never compare. There is no likeness to the capricious beauty of Alexandria, so full of life that it stands proof to the greatest heresy, that man is capable of creating life from nothing. Alexandria bears the name of her creator, just as Amunet once bore her name. But this life was gone now.

From a high viewpoint up the mountain, where she sat through the night in meditation, she could discern on the shore the trireme bound for the Eternal City. Omens predicted a safe and fast voyage. The wind was picking up slowly, falling down the mountain slopes towards the shore, playing with the white sails as they waited to be unfurled. Her mind was racing forward in time, already disembarking at the buzzing Ostian docks and fixated to the tasks that awaited her in Rome. She wished she could already be there. From the outside, she was a statue. An ideal of controlled power. From the inside, she was burning. Not only because of the events of the past few weeks. The Hidden Ones suffered a tremendous blow. The Bureau in ashes, Tahira and many others now in the Duat. Treachery threatened to deal an even larger blow.

Bayek.

She was proud them. Proud because once again, they proved how strong they can be together. Proud that the Hidden Ones persevered though this hard trial. And proud that the two of them persevered through their trial. The hardest one of all. Staying alive in a fight was one thing. You sharpen your sword, sharpen your senses and step in the chaos with nothing but your skill and luck as armour. You deal blows, you take blows. You emerge bloody and victorious, only to continue fighting with no time to be thankful that you stayed alive. But this fight was something else entirely. There is no skill, no hidden trick up your sleeve to help you through. Luck has no stakes in this game. You step in blind and deaf and wait for the waves to crush over you and stomp the air out of your lungs. You look into the other one’s eye and you have everything laid out in front of you. He knows everything. Predicts which way you dodge an incoming blow and the way your spine curves when he bites your neck. He knows how many strokes you take to sharpen your sickle sword and how many strokes your name takes to emerge from the parchment.

Seeing him again after so many years was harder than facing all the enemies she felled until that day. It was a trial of demons. But the moment passed as suddenly as it arrived, and she found herself still whole. He was not the demon. It was fear and doubt that cursed her breaths and plagued her consciousness, as heavy slabs of porphyry weighing down her soul, of a deep colour that allows no light through it, carved with deep letterings – their story. Carved to last for eternity. She will never get rid of those demons. Nor did she want to.

She took another deep breath through her mouth, filing in the lungs as much as she could. Her soul wanted to tear the mountains with a scream, but statues do not scream. As if feeling a presence looking at her from behind, she glanced towards the entrance to the cave. The coals were still gleaming with a hidden fire inside them. Incense was burning with an intense smell in a small clay vessel, carefully put just next to the entrance. This new bureau seemed like a desperate device, a refuge for animals rather than men. But here, high up in the mountains, they were safe. They knew the terrain around them. It was full of secret getaways, hidden lookouts and a hopeless maze for anyone unfamiliar with the area. She saw the men motivated, eager and dedicated to the cause. It gave her hope. Without their efforts, what was once a cave for roaming beasts started to transform into a refuge of peace. The incense, the fire, the smell of food being prepared, the colourful carpets and curtains strewn around, lively chatter and an occasional laughter, even the calming sound of the brook rushing through the stones – all of it mimicking a home. For a moment, she wished she could stay. Her mind lost control and she saw herself at the same place as she was now, sitting with her legs crossed. She felt a hand on her shoulder. A firm clasp suddenly releasing into gentle fingers tracing the line of her neck all the way up to her hair. She looks up, but the sun is blocking her view. So bright and blinding. She doesn’t need to see. He is close, so close. His lips are dry from the heath and she can feel the minuscule speckles of coarse dust on them, as she passes her tongue across them. His smell overtakes all her senses. If her mind was an epitome of stoic control with edges sharp as a pyramid’s, these lines were now turning into a chaotic whirlpool more dreadful than the concoctions of Charybdis and Scylla. His heath was that of a thousand suns, and she could feel with her palm his living heart beating inside the body. With every movement of his lips and body she felt as if reliving another life, like a goddess unafraid of death. His hands were pulling her towards him and she was pulling him fiercely as if to lock their bodies forever in this moment. She desperately wanted to suffocate in his kiss. In between gasping breaths, his mouth was wording her name, the name she had when she was his, and he was hers. Every sound was accentuated by his fingers rough and gentle, making their way across her skin. There was no ground to touch nor air to envelop them. The whole world was just the two of them. She wanted him to repeat her name once more. Only he knew it. Just as he knew every part of her. Their bodies and souls were naked, without beginning or ending.

 

_Open your eyes. Aya. Open your eyes… Aya, my love. Aya._

 

No. Not yet. Please…

 

“We have done good.”

That is what she said to him. A few words, barely uttered. So much was left unspoken. They both pulled closer at the same time. Their brows touched and time seemed to stop. She could only hear their breaths racing one after the other. His hand touched her hair and slid down her shoulder, numb and powerless. The mighty Bayek of Siwa. His eyes were heavy and unable to look up to her. She looked at him, as if she sees him for the first time. But his face was already a familiar map of memories. Time etched its mark on his skin. She could trace all the moments of sorrow and joy that life brought to him. She could see herself in many of them. Almost all of them. She could see them together, in love. Together, parting ways. Together, with Khemu. It was all there. If he looks at her, he will see the same. And in that moment, they would realise that their paths will always cross and that together, they could shape the world with the power of gods.

He did not look up. He was no god, and neither was she. The night passed sleepless and cold. It was almost time to leave. That was their farewell. He was the stronger one, she realised. He pushed her away and crumbled the mad fantasy that was building up in her mind. It was Aya that he pulled closed to him, but Amunet was the one that left. Now, she had to be Amunet again.

Bringing her mind and senses to reality, she started to feel the real world around her, bereft of creeping memories from the past and loose fantasies. She was slowly breaking the chains of that locked her mind in this long and anguishing stupor. A faint voice was still pulling her to stay in  meditation. Weak and almost non-human, but she could still hear it. _Aya_ …

Enough. The world awaits. A world that depends on Amunet, not on a ghost of the past.

 

  _Aya_ …

 

 

 

“Aya…”

**Author's Note:**

> If you read this until the end, I want to thank you for reading the first thing that I ever wrote, went through several times, finished and posted online.


End file.
